Texas Tech 76, Iowa St. 64

Published 6:00 pm, Friday, February 22, 2008

Texas Tech's next three games are against ranked teams, so it was important to gain momentum going into the tough stretch.

Tech won its second straight conference game _ a first this season _ when it beat Iowa State 76-64 on Saturday.

"It gives these kids confidence winning back-to-backs," Red Raiders coach Pat Knight said. "You lose this game and you kind of eliminate the good game you won on the road. That's all we talked about after the Colorado game, just see if we could win two in a row."

Martin Zeno and Alan Voskuill combined for 44 points in the win that allowed Knight to even his coaching record at 3-3 since his father, Bob Knight, resigned this month.

Tech beat Colorado 87-69 on Wednesday.

In the next 10 days, Tech plays at No. 22 Texas A&M, No. 7 Texas in Lubbock and at No. 4 Kansas.

The Red Raiders (15-11, 6-6 Big 12) used a 10-4 run to start the second half, helped by a Voskuill 3-pointer. But Iowa State's Sean Haluska answered with a basket from beyond the arc and the Cyclones (14-13, 4-8) countered with their own 9-4 run to whittle the Tech lead to 63-62 with less than five minutes remaining.

Charlie Burgess hit his first bucket of the game, and Tech answered with a 7-2 burst that rebuilt the lead to 70-64.

On the Cyclones next possession, Tech's Esmir Rizvic blocked Diante Garrett's layup attempt. The Cyclones got the ball back but made an errant pass to turn the ball over.

Two free throws by Zeno with 1:12 remaining gave Tech its largest lead to that point. Rizvic got the outlet pass off another Cyclones turnover and dunked to push the margin to double digits, 74-64.

Zeno finished with 23 points, and Voskuill added 21. Voskuill didn't shoot a free throw in the first half; he was 8 of 9 in the second half.

"If I just keep moving, running into them, then they're eventually going to hold me," Voskuill said.

Iowa State got only two baskets in the final five minutes of the game. Jiri Hubalek, who finished with 17 points and 15 rebounds, got one, and Sean Haluska, who added 15 points, got the other. Bryan Petersen got 14 for the Cyclones.

Ten of Tech's 14 second-half field goals were layups and the Red Raiders made 16 free throws.

"You're lucky to be in the game if that's the case," Cyclones coach Greg McDermott said. "I thought we did a better job the first half of playing and making them shoot some perimeter jump shots as opposed to the second half."

The win made it three straight for Tech over the Cyclones.

The Cyclones were up by 7 points three times in the first half, but Tech battled back. The Red Raiders used a 12-5 run including 9 points from Trevor Cook to pull within 21-20 with less than seven minutes left. Tech went up 24-23 on a 3 by John Roberson.

Cook's contribution helped. He had 11 points and eight rebounds.

"It was big. He scored points, he got rebounds," Pat Knight said. "He brought some energy off the bench."

Hubalek, who had his third double-double of the season by halftime, got his second 3-pointer of the half with less than 20 seconds remaining. But Voskuill hit from well beyond the 3-point line at the buzzer to whittle Tech's halftime deficit to 33-31.